After playing a clip of Perry’s New Hampshire gaffe where he recently got the voting age and the date of the election wrong, Gretchen Carlson said, “Obviously, the voting age is eighteen, and you know the election date, I understand that, the fact that you could even pull out the number twelve, hat’s off to you, but what do you make about the fact you got the voting age wrong?”

Perry gave his standard Obama once said there were 57 states reply, so candidates get things wrong all the time response, but the real mind blower here isn’t that Perry added another gaffe to his gaffe filled campaign, it is that Fox News doesn’t seem to think it is a big deal at all if a candidate for the Republican nomination doesn’t know when Election Day is.

Carlson congratulated Perry for what, exactly? Knowing that there is an election in 2012? Being aware of the fact that he is running for president? Rick Perry may not know what the voting age is, or the date of the election, but congratulations on getting the year right. Not knowing a minor detail like the date of the election that you are hope to be running in is no big deal.

Compare Fox News softballing of Perry to how they treated Mitt Romney last night:

Baier hit Romney for his flip-flops on immigration, abortion, climate change, and gay rights. For the record, Mitt Romney completely cracked, and went as far as to deny the video evidence of his own words on the program. If you contrast the way Perry and Romney were treated, it is clear that Fox News is pulling for anybody but Mitt to win the nomination. Rick Perry gets Hannitized while Mitt Romney gets brutalized.

The possibility that Mitt Romney might be pretending to be a wing nut so that he can run against Obama in the fall is considered much worse than being an actual wing nut who doesn’t know the voting age, or the date of the 2012 election (November 6, 2012). In the upside down land of Republican politics, ignorance is power, and extreme ignorance gets rewarded on Fox News.